Does anyone else feel as depressed as I do about the run-up and outcome of the UK general election and the almost total obliteration of women unless party leaders’ wives (Samcam, Sarbrown, MiClegg), involved in party leaders’ clangers (as in Duffy-gate), or couthy journalists?
The whole campaign has been decidedly presidential with its almost exclusive focus on the three male, white leaders (and women like Harriet Harman forcibly pushed into the background), and it has not gone unnoticed that most of the interviewers, commentators and journalists with notable exceptions such as Polly Toynbee have also been male and white. All the so-called negotiators in setting up the coalition were male, although a few women could be seen from a distance, usually in the support roles of press officer or campaign manager.
Where are the women and after all these decades of feminist campaigning, how has it come to this? I also feel enraged about the early candidates for the new labour leader, five men and once again, no women, or any black and/or ethnic minority candidates, for that matter. What have we being doing? Who have we been speaking to all these years? Is it time for a Women’s Party?
Gaby Weiner, GEA Chair
This is too true. One of the other issues of note, is the retrograde moves towards a C/conservative notion of family and marriage as a strong site where ‘social justice’ can be achieved.
It is also worthwhile looking at Ian Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice to think of the ways this administration might develop – with attacks on single parents and the development of a very narrow version of ‘relationship education’ in schools – with the valourisation of heterosexual marriage as the only valid relationship choice.
Some links:
http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/
Oh and the Fawcett society make very similar comments to Gaby… see:
http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=1032
I’ve added a video post on the homepage of Ceri Goddard from the Fawcett Society and Margaret Beckett from the Labour Party discussing the lack of women in senior political roles in the UK.
Yes, Gaby, it is dreadful, isn’t it? Almost as if we had not done any campaigning at all over the years. Blair’s babes were at least an advantage on this – we aren’t even foetuses are we, merely the vessels for those foetuses! Most of all, as regards the Labour party contest, I find it deeply shocking that Harriet Harman, elected as deputy has decided not to run, and so has Yvette Cooper, whose husband has less experience than her, and is decidedly more authoritarian and misogynist. Remember the Sharon Shoesmith case, and the Machiavellian role that Christine Gilbert, head of Ofsted, PLAYED? Blinky, as Matthew Norman, in the Independent, calls him, is about to confine the Labour party to history. We certainly need a socialist-feminist party, but can Labour in its present parlous state do this?
I agree with the points made above. I suppose at least there are more women MPs now but since both Labour and LibDems have fewer than before that may not be very helpful. Besides, women are still only 22% of MPs. If you examine the elections results in terms of class and ethnic origin, they are equally depressing. On the plus side, Labour have the first three Muslim women, the LibDems have Sarah Teather and the brilliant leader of the Greens, Caroline Lucas, was elected. Of the political journalists prominent in election articles, Polly Toynbee was consistently prescient and outstanding on many issues. Generally, however, the whole election seems a setback rather than progress for women. It does show we’re right not to stop caring or fighting for what we believe.
Herewith a Scottish Review article on women’s absence in the political sphere which gives a few statistics
http://www.scottishreview.net/RGalt258.html
There was also a good article in the Sunday Herald this weekend
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/ian-bell/oxbridge-boys-brigade-are-on-the-march-to-leadership-1.1028793
Gaby Weiner
and finally…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8693687.stm
At last some good news – Dianne Abbott announced on the Today programme this morning that she was going to run for the Labour leadership as she had been pressed by lots of friends and colleagues, about the lack of women and people from min ority ethnic groups. Her mention of this received a very lukewarm reception, and was only mentioned on the news after Andy Burnham’s announcement. Seems to show how difficult it is to be taken seriously. But lets all raise 3 cheers for Diane and hope she wins the ‘beauty’ contest.
The latest on this is that Ed. Miliband, as reported on the front page of The Guardian on Saturday: ‘Miliband … calls for a third of the seats in the shadow cabinet to be reserved for women’. Good on this young man, who was born about the time when the women’s movement started campaigning for political equality! Instead of supporting such blatant inequality shouldn’t he be calling for women-only shortlists for the Labour party leadership, given his view of the ‘fantastic women ministers who were not allowed to be involved in the elction campaign’?
I’ve found an interesting podcast of Karen Ross speaking in 2009 about the ways that women politicians are represented in the media. It partly addresses Gaby’s question: How did we get to this? You can find it here (It’s the one entitled Women In/And the News and Karen’s speaking for about the first 15 minutes): http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/podcasts/
On a political tip, there is a forthcoming festival at the Barbican, London, that should be of interest.
http://www.tricycle.co.uk/current-programme-pages/special-events/women-power-politics-special-events/
Post performance discussions include:
Thursday 1 July
Discussion 1:
The Electoral System – A Masculine Democracy?
Chaired by Reeta Chakrabarti *
Thursday 8 July
Discussion 2:
Women in Politics Vs Sexuality and Media
Chaired by Bonnie Greer *
Thursday 15 July
Discussion 3:
Women in Parliament – Why is Britain So Far Behind The Rest of Europe?
Chaired by Clare Short
The stuff Fin posted above is at the Tricycle theatre not the Barbican. There’s two series of plays – one based on women in politics NOW and one on women in politics THEN. I saw the now series yesterday and it was very thought provoking – 5 mini plays interspersed with extracts from MPs talk. My favourite was based on Margaret Beckett’s campaign to become Labour leader. A two hander – one actor played Beckett with a brief cameo as Gordon Brown and the other actor did an amazing job in all the other roles – Leo Beckett, Tony Blair, Clare Short (who was in the audience), Peter Mandelson, a student activist and John Prescott. I’d recommend it if you get the chance.